Film Festival Submission Tips #7: Does Your Film Have A Trailer?

5 Reasons Why Your Film Should Have A Trailer

Film or Web Series trailers are not a requirement for submission to our Film Festival Events. However, having a trailer associated with your submission, is valuable to our judging process and event marketing efforts.

Our Film Festival judges in each region, watch the entire video submitted, as well as, each film trailer available. When our judges watch 100 films over a 30 day period, watching the trailer can help them recall details about your submisson. Even days or weeks after watching and rating your film the first time. Whether it is in the selection phase or the award nomination phase, our judges are always referencing, rewatching, comparing and spot checking films over time before making a final rating.

Festival attendees want to get an idea of what the films are about, before deciding which sessions to attend. You want people to be excited to see your film. In a film trailer, even a few images, lines, music or sound effects can peak someones interest. We post every trailer of every film accepted, on our website and sometimes multiple times on social media. It helps build excitement. This is free marketing for your creative work!

Your film’s trailer is a great way to link to a website or social media channel. Film attendees frequently ask us, “How can I be notified when this film or web series is released. How can I share this with friends?” Adding a link, turns your trailer into a gateway for people to find out more info about your productions.

Your trailer can be shared or bookmarked, which is free marketing. Every share and discussion about your creative work online, helps market your film. It is also a public record of engagement that people may find, when researching your film.

A lot of filmmakers haven’t made the task of creating a trailer, a priority. Stay ahead of your competition. Only 45% of films submitted to the Oregon Short Film Festival 2019 included a trailer with their submission. If your film is longer than 3 minutes, you should have a trailer that is publicly available on YouTube or Vimeo.

Mikel Fair

Mikel Fair
My name is Mikel Fair. I am the Director of Film Festival Circuit Inc. First of all, we are a company that manages film festival events in Texas and Oregon. Furthermore, we like to have fun and celebrate independent film. I worked for 15 years in the television and film production as a location sound mixer and production manager. I have also worked in post production as an editor, post sound mixer and composer. Above all, watching independent films and reading creative screenplays is my passion.